By
Carlos Santoscoy
Published:
March 12, 2014

The British government will begin
recognizing the marriages of gay couples who married overseas as of
Thursday.

While a law legalizing such unions
doesn't take effect until Saturday, March 29, already married couples
have only a day to wait.

“It's like being turned into a
pumpkin on the stroke of midnight,” Celia Kitzinger, who married
her wife Sue Wilkinson in Canada in 2003, told BuzzFeed.
“We'll be sitting there in bed with a bottle of champagne and at
the stroke of midnight we'll turn into a married couple. We're going
away to a hotel, having a nice meal and then at midnight we'll be
wife and wife again!”

The women married in Vancouver, where
Wilkinson was working temporarily for two years.

In 2005, they filed a lawsuit asking
for their Canadian marriage to be recognized in Britain. The women
said that their case received little support from Stonewall,
England's largest LGBT rights advocate.

“What we got from the gay community
and Stonewall at the time were questions about why we were treating
civil partnerships as second rate,” Kitzinger explained.
“Stonewall declined to support our challenge.”

The women, who lost their case, said
that they are looking forward to being lawfully married again.